Prince William Sound Museum

The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a major environmental disaster that made worldwide headlines in the spring of 1989 and occurred in Alaska's Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989. The spill occurred when Exxon Valdez, an oil supertanker owned by Exxon Shipping Company, bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef, 6 mi west of Tatitlek, Alaska at 12:04 a.m. The tanker spilled approximately 10.8 million US gallons of crude oil over the next few days.The Exxon Valdez spill is the second largest in U.S. waters, after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, in terms of volume of oil released.